The present invention relates to a dialing control method in a call center that executes the outbound task by connecting telephones and a computer.
In recent years, telemarketing that performs sales activities via telephones has received a lot of attention. A system in which a list of customers is held on a computer, and a large number of operators make telephone calls to customers while observing the list of customers so as to provide telemarketing services is called a call center, and has an arrangement, as shown in, e.g., FIG. 19. Referring to FIG. 19, a host computer 301 holds a call list 302, which is displayed on terminals 304 of operators 303. Each operator 303 makes telephone calls to customers listed in the call list using a telephone 305 to provide tele-marketing services. In a system in which a host computer links with a PBX, dialing is automatically made via a PBX 306 in accordance with an instruction from the terminal 304 to connect the corresponding telephone 305.
In tele-marketing, since the operators directly talk to individual customers using the telephones to provide data about products or persuade while observing the customers' responses, such sales activities can be attained with low cost. However, in a large-scale system, a large number of operators and a large number of telephone lines are required, and a method of efficiently controlling telephone dialing is required to talk to customers as many as possible within a predetermined period of time.
A task for dialing from the center to a customer of those of the call center is generally called an outbound task. For example, the sales activities for taking orders via telephones while listing up good customers, the questionnairing for predicting a successful candidate by asking voters about candidates they will vote in the election, and the like correspond to the outbound task.
In an outbound task, calls must be made for a large number of customers (or voters). For this reason, a system of efficiently taking operators into their services is desired.
In a certain conventional tele-marketing system, operators are individually given a customer list, and manually make calls based on the list. For this reason, when a customer is absent or busy, the operator must wait, thus impairing the operator efficiency.
In view of this problem, a system of performing automatic dialing using a computer has been proposed.
As a preferred system, a host computer monitors the states of lines, detects completion of conversation between an operator and a customer, selects another appropriate customer from the call list, and automatically makes a call to the selected customer. This system is called a power dialing system. In this system, since dialing is automated, the operator efficiency can be improved as compared to the above-mentioned system. However, in this system as well, the idle time for an operator is produced from when dialing is started until the call is connected and the called customer answers the telephone call.
More specifically, upon dialing, the call is not immediately connected to the customer. An operation for connecting the line on the public network (this operation is called a setup operation, and the time required for this operation is called a setup time) is required. Furthermore, even when the line is connected, if the called customer is busy, the call must be interrupted, and redialing must be done. Even when the customer is not busy and the ringing tone is produced, a certain time is required until the customer answers (this time is called a calling time). When the called customer does not answer after an elapse of a sufficient period of time from the beginning of calling, it is determined that the customer is absent, and dialing must be done for another customer. These times amount for the idle time of the operator. Accordingly, the power dialing system cannot often obtain sufficiently high efficiency although it depends on situations.
In order to solve this problem, dialing to the next customer is performed using another line before the conversation time between the operator and the customer is completed, whether the customer is absent or busy is automatically determined, and the connected customer is automatically distributed to an operator, thereby improving the operator efficiency. Such a system is called a predictive dialing system. The predictive dialing system is disclosed in detail in, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,829,563 and 5,327,491.
In order to reduce the idle time, dialing must be performed while predicting the connection timing of the next call so that the next call is connected just at the talk-completion timing between the operator and the customer. In this case, calls more than the number of operators are originated under the assumption that several % of customers are absent or busy. Such a dialing system is called a predictive dialing system.
However, whether or not the predicted result comes true is the matter of probability, and if there is no free operator even though the call is connected and a customer answers, the customer must wait at the telephone. In this case, an urgent countermeasure may be taken, e.g., a message or music recorded on a tape may be played back. However, although such a telephone call is one-sidedly made, the message played back from the tape may wound customer's susceptibilities, and this may result in a reverse effect on the business. In general, prediction is made in consideration of the setup time, calling time, conversation time (the time required for the operator to talk with one customer), and the like. However, since these times do not have definite values, prediction errors occur. Also, whether the customer is busy or absent cannot be predicted in advance, and may cause prediction errors. Since predictive dialing is made, the possibility of such cases cannot be reduced to be zero, but occurrence of the wait state must be suppressed and the wait time must be shortened as much as possible.
However, in the conventional predictive dialing system, since the conversation time of each operator is indefinite, the completion of conversation is predicted using the average conversation time or the like. For this reason, when the conversation time is considerably longer than the average time, no operator can cope with a call which has been originated upon predicting the completion of conversation, and the customer must wait. On the other hand, when the wait state is to be eliminated, the operator efficiency is impaired.
In the case of power dialing, the setup time is directly added to the operator's idle time, and redialing due to a busy customer also prolongs the operator's idle time. In the case of predictive dialing, a response to the started call cannot be definitely predicted due to an indefinite setup time and the presence of busy customers, thus causing the operator's idle time or customer's wait time.
In the future, as portable telephones become popular, the rate of absence lowers and the calling time becomes shorter, but the setup time is expected to become longer. In this way, the setup time may disturb improvement of the service efficiency of operators.
As described above, when the setup time and the busy rate can be substantially decreased, the problems of the above-mentioned systems can be solved, and the service efficiency of operators can be improved.
In tele-marketing, when a customer is absent or busy, dialing must be interrupted, and redialing must be made later for such customers. In particular, when a customer is absent, the operator must hear the calling tones of a telephone for a predetermined period of time so as to detect whether or not the customer is absent, resulting in a serious bottleneck in terms of the efficiency of tele-marketing.
In a call center that adopts the above-mentioned power or predictive dialing system, the host computer 301 performs automatic dialing, and connects the line, the customer answers, to the telephone 305 of an operator. In such case as well, the presence of absent or busy customers disturbs an improvement of the efficiency of telemarketing.
As described above, (1) in the predictive dialing system such as a conventional telemarketing system, in which the call center for performing the outbound task, since it is difficult to accurately predict completion of conversation of an operator, it is difficult to attain improvement of the operator efficiency and suppression of occurrence of the wait state of the customer for the connected call (or shortening the generated wait time) at the same time.
(2) In the power dialing system in which the conventional call center for performing the outbound task performs automatic dialing, since the setup time is added to the operator's idle time, and the time required for redialing to a busy customer is also added to the operator's idle time, it is difficult to sufficiently improve the operator efficiency.
In the predictive dialing system in which the conventional call center for performing the outbound task performs automatic dialing, it is difficult to accurately predict the setup time and the busy rate, it is difficult to attain improvement of the operator efficiency and suppression of occurrence of the wait state of the customer for the connected call (or shortening the generated wait time) at the same time.
(3) In various other systems in which the conventional call center for performing the outbound task performs manual or automatic dialing, when the called customer is absent or busy, the operator's idle time increases, thus impairing the operator efficiency.